Week 95, 7/25/17

Hello cuties!   

Man, this week has been another crazy one.  There is so much that happens every day but sadly so far this transfer the bulk of our time has been spent in the office doing administrative things.  There is so much going on and coming up in the mission right now!!  The highlight of this week was definitely getting Facebook access. As some of you may have noticed, I am on Facebook as a missionary.  Its pretty exciting, I think this will enable our mission to take a step up in the work.  People are so much more easy to keep in touch with and have daily contact with by sharing meaningful things on Facebook! So yeah, I'm pretty pumped to see how it goes.  

I had questionable luck contacting these Eskimo cheerleaders on light rail.  At least I got a good selfie. 

However, Ill be honest.  As I have gone through and cleaned up my account and unfollowed a bunch of people, it has made me think more about home than I have in a while😂 And holy crap, ABSOLUTELY EVERYONE IS MARRIED.  Anyways, its pretty annoying but I'm pretty much done cleaning up my account and now I will be able to focus simply on connecting with and helping those we meet and teach come closer to Christ.  I really do believe that the Lord has given us this tool to help hasten the work here the blessed CEM.  We also had another MLC meeting on Thursday to help the MLC (Mission Leadership Council for all of you who forgot what that stood for) set up their smartphones and we gave a training on online proselyting to introduce facebook.  

It honestly went a lot more terrible than we anticipated setting up the phones😂 Everyone was having a bunch of problems haha.  We finally got it figured out though thank goodness.  I can't really think of anything else that would be worth writing about this week sadly.  We did get to do some finding and as usual had some great conversations and taught people about the Savior and His restored gospel, but nothing has quite developed with those conversations yet.  

I am REALLY looking forward to next transfer when there isnt 3 million things to organize and we can give so much more attention to the Southgate area!  Well I hope all of you are doing great and at least working towards getting married, because if you're not it looks like you about the only one.  Sheesh..   

Cereal party with traveling APs

E. Hlavaty came and visited with his fam!

Weekly Scripture: 1 Corinthians 12:19-23 > 19 And if they were all one member, where were the body? > 20 But now are they many members, yet but one body. > 21 And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee: nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you. > 22 Nay, much more those members of the body, which seem to be more feeble, are necessary: > 23 And those members of the body, which we think to be less honorable, upon these we bestow more abundant honor; and our uncomely parts have more abundant comeliness.   

Pics: 1)My good homie and past comp Steve Hlavaty came and his family took us out to dinner:):) 2) Cereal party with the Travelling assistants 3-4)MLC pics 5) I tried to contact these Edmonton Eskimos (Edmontons CFL team) cheerleaders on the LRT as they were coming back from a parade hahaha. It was going well until I started shifting the conversation toward spiritual things, then they got all quiet and awkward :( I figured I would get a selfie with them though cuz its not every day you run into Eskis cheerleaders 😏 6) exchange selfie with the studly elder miller

Week 94, 7/18/17

Hola mis amigos,  

 This week was awesome and packed with a ridiculous amount of stuff we did, and spiritual experiences, as usual. :) 

Sadly we can't seem to escape the office lately because of a whole bunch of stuff coming up that we have to get ready for.  A couple big service events, smartphones and Facebook being implemented mission-wide, zone conference coming up, another MLC meeting this week, I could go on and on.  But we did get to do a good amount of proselyting this week!  We had another great lesson with Sarah followed by some bad news.  She was progressing and everything, but then told us that she was moving to Fort Mac for the rest of the summer.  From what she said it sounded like she was pretty much already gone, but then a few nights later we saw her from a distance walking around her townhouse complex.... Yeah weird.   

...typical moment in a typical day in my mission...

We taught Tanesor again!  I was on exchanges in Ellerslie when it happened, but apparently it went really well and he remembers a lot of the Plan of Salvation and the importance of baptism. He is awesome. Sadly he couldn't make it to church though.  Ray is doing well too, he is starting to get involved in ARP which will be really good for him.  

I have a bunch of funny stories I could tell from our finding this week such as a lady borrowing our phone to call someone to bring her a pair of pants cuz she had just soiled hers, us confounding a guy who was trying to roast us and him telling us to ask "the darkest of the dark" black man cuz they will "know more about why we suck", random people telling us about their bowel problems, etc.  

E. Connelly

But I will tell a cool spiritual story. :)  We were LRT contacting (train contacting) and I went and sat next to a girl because it was the only open seat.  Before I could start a conversation, this member across the aisle started talking to me and asking me all these questions.  Just a piece of advice for all you, if you see a missionary out contacting, don't ruin their contacting. :) Anyways, I didn't get to talk to the girl I sat next to at all and I felt terrible because I could tell the Spirit was telling me that it was important that I talk to her.  Probably 20 minutes later we arrived back at the stop the girl got off at, and I could see across the street the same girl was waiting at a bus stop!  So of course I went stalker mode and high-tailed it over there and finally talked to her. It was a little awkward breaking the ice because she probably thought I was totally stalking her, which I honestly kind of was hahaha. I ended up teaching her about the Book of Mormon and Jesus Christ and she seems really interested and we are meeting with her this weekend!

President's Aunt :)

I'm so grateful the Lord gave me a second chance. :)  Life is good, the gospel is true, and our Savior and Father in Heaven live and love us!   

Weekly Scripture: 3 Nephi 11:33 And whoso believeth in me, and is baptized, the same shall be saved; and they are they who shall inherit the kingdom of God.   

Exchange with E. Pollack

Pics: 1) Exchanges with elder pollock 2) typical 3-4) exchanges with Elder Connelly in good ol ellerslie 5-8)-yesterday we spent most of the day moving the mission home. President let us take a pic with his aunt

Week 93, 7/11/17

Hello beloveds. :)   

I have A LOT I could write about this week, and not a lot of time. I guess Ill just start writing and see what happens.   

So Tuesday was awesome with the new missionaries, taking them street contacting and all.  There are seriously solid ones.  I remember my first day street contacting I was a nervous wreck, but these studs just gave'r.  Wednesday was transfers and we were running around like crazy people with our brains spinning around all day.  We had an awesome dinner with the homies elder ridge Francis Payne, elder Jess Robert hunsaker, elder Joshua Kyle Anderson, elder McKay Steven chamberlain, elder Cairo Jacob nerdin, and many other departing missionaries at the mission home.  Gonna miss them lots for a few months! We had to stay up until 1 to finish writing and preparing to give our MLC training the next day.....   

Bye Bye to my good buddies

Thursday morning we were up at 3:45 to take the old geezers to the airport.  After already being very sleep deprived from the previous three days, this was definitely pushing the fatigue to beyond my limits of being able to function.  Somehow though, with the help of the Lord and some caffeine, we were all able to give a super great MLC training and everything went way better than we anticipated it would go even if we had gotten a normal amount of sleep for the past few days!!  The main thing was our demonstration roleplays.  Both of them were BY FAR the best we had ever done when it was there in MLC.  We were super glad we were able to demonstrate the principles we wanted to teach well. 😊 That meeting went from 9-3 and all in all we had to give 4 trainings, all of them went great.  I really think we received a spiritual gift to somehow not be affected by the minuscule amount of sleep we got that week, and simply worked through us to effectively teach the MLC. It was a super cool experience!  
  

That's A.M ....uggh

The next few days were when my body was catching up with its tiredness levels.  We were all so wrecked... we all just about fell asleep at different times in Ray's lesson. I also slept through half of sacrament meeting and 100 % of elders quorum on accident... whoops.  Friday, Saturday and Sunday were pretty much all spent in the office fixing a bunch of problems that came with transfers and getting things organized for a couple big events coming up soon in the mission.  We thought we were going to be able to do some proselyting, and we did a tiny bit, but it was definitely taking a toll not being able to do missionary work.  

 Monday after a really long meeting with President Pattison, we had to spend a few more unexpected hours in the office setting up our SAMSUNG GALAXY J3 (😍😍😍) and then we finally had 2 hours in the evening to go finding.  In those two hours of tracting, we found 5 potentials and 1 investigator who is now on date for August 12th!  She had been wondering if God was there and seeking for guidance that day, and what do ya know, we were led to her by the good Lord. It was a super spiritual lesson and she acknowledged it.  Her name is Sarah, we are teaching her and her whole family on Wednesday!  Taneshor is meeting with us on Saturday now that he is back in town. :)   

Smartphone swag

Dang sorry that was a long email!! This week was the busiest of my whole life.  I have no doubt about it.  The Lord seriously helped us so much though.  Thats why I love being a missionary so much.  Yes, there is so much to do and you're exhausted all the time, but you definitely receive Heaven's help as much as is necessary, and sometimes it is necessary in very large quantities, like this week. :)   

Love you all!   

Weekly Scripture: D&C 123:17 Therefore, dearly beloved brethren, let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power ; and then may we stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God and for his arm to be reavealed.   

Pics: the tender mercies were abudant this week.  I dont know if I have ever seen something as cool as that gray McLaren... Bye bye to my good buddies MLC Smartphone swag

POSTERIZED!!

E. Hunsaker needed a little humbling!

Which angle do you like best?

 

Epic Slo-mo Edit -

Jasper National Park V.3 PICS

3rd time to Jasper and it never gets old

Week 92, 7/4/17

Well happy Independence Day to all you Americans!!

Wish I could celebrate our great country with you all today, but the Lord needs me in Edmonton.  I have absolutely zero time today since we are picking up the new missionaries real soon and it is transfers tomorrow, so even if I did have the time, there's no way my brain could piece together a decent email anyway since I'm so tired and frazzled prepping for all of that. 

Pics enjoying CANADA DAY!

I will just share two stories.  On Friday we had an awesome lesson with Ray.  We really want him to work more aggressively towards baptism and quit smoking.  We had a good lesson planned lined up, and at one point I asked him what next step he could take to show God his faith.  He said he could be more diligent about reading the Book of Mormon every day.  Right after that the spirit was so powerful in the room and Elder Hunsaker felt prompted to promise him as the Saviors representative that he would be able to have the spiritual strength to quit smoking if he read the Book of Mormon every day.  Hopefully he does!  I have no doubt that he will be baptized soon enough.   

Saturday was 150th Canada Day!!! It was a super awesome day.  The highlight was going up to the legislature building grounds where there were a couple live music setups, a bunch of food tents, activities, free legislature building tours, etc.  TONS of people were there. There was no open proselyting allowed so we pretty much just walked around and tried to be seen being friendly to everyone and starting casual conversations where we could, bringing up gospel things and sharing cards, etc. We came to learn that standing in lines and talking to people in lines was the best strategy. The Lord helped us in doing that when I went up to two people eating ice cream and started talking to them about their ice cream.  I genuinely wanted to get ice cream (it was super hot), so I was asking them about it and then the lady just says, "ya know what, you can have free ice cream on me!" And pulled a 20 out and demanded that I take it.  What?! Super awesome.  Then she wanted a picture with us.  Very grateful for how awesome she was because it allowed us to actually have money to pay for food so we could stand in more lines and talk to people!  

We had some great conversations! A bunch of people wanted to get pictures with the Mormons too, it was fun.  I got on the Vietnamese news waving a Canadian flag:) We were there for about 5 hours, most of the rest of the day was spent either eating food or on the LRT finding people.  It was honestly one of the most physically and socially exhausting days of my mission.  

At the end of the evening we were getting off the last train and it was almost time to go in (we still go in at 9, but our mission president approved us to stay out till 9:30 in the summer if we are finding), and we were getting off our last train a bit before 9 to go back, but something just felt a little off about heading back. Yes we had talked to SO many people and had so many awesome convos and gotten a few potentials, but we hadn't found someone super solid yet. We decided to do one more quick LRT run. Again, good conversations but no fruit.  Walking back to our apartment, out of the station, I saw two women sitting on a bench a decent ways away and I told myself "ah, we are done, its almost 9:30, I'm so exhausted and they are already having a conversation, etc" pretty much every excuse you could think of.  But then for whatever reason I just turned around and went to talk to them anyway, and they turned out to be super interested in the Book of Mormon and want to meet! Such an awesome feeling when we follow promptings :)  Well this is longer than I thought it would be.  Big news is next week we are getting a smartphone and Facebook

access in preparation to implement it into the whole mission. Exciting! 

Luv from Canada - E. Bonny

Weekly Scripture: 1 Nephi 13:30- USA!   

Lets take a closer look :)